Teachers may have ‘papers’, but please peg pay on performance

This week, teachers’ unions slapped the Teachers’ Service Commission with a proposal demanding a 300 per cent pay rise. If granted, it would see the lowest paid teacher get a Sh50,000 salary every month. The unions want the highest paid teacher to take home a Sh1.3 million salary, basically more than MPs and even top managers of many a small limited liability company in Kenya. Leafing through the proposed structures, I got a bit lost in thought, jealous even. For a moment I almost forgot that I’m paid to ensure the story and figures were accurate and concisely rendered, and not to rack my brains over whether it was right.

Let me state from the outset that I have teachers’ best wishes in this old heart. So much that if there were demonstrations to demand decent pay for teachers, I would be the first one on Tom Mboya Street with twigs and a whistle, chest all bared against the water cannon and the tear gas.

If we were to hit the streets for teachers’ sake, I’d probably even find it okay to feed one of the city statues a pint of milk or two, like Gor Mahia fans do with religious aplomb with the Tom Mboya Monument on Moi Avenue. For teachers do a great job. They receive toddlers who know only how to soil themselves and teach them how to write, read and count. Progressively, they convert otherwise savage illiterates into what you and I are today.

Like the police, teachers are never given what they deserve in terms of pay and working conditions. Unlike the police, however, they do not collect crumpled Sh50 notes to send via M-Pesa to their bosses (in millions) and live tell old wives tales about merry-go-rounds during vetting sessions. It is not only kindergartens and primary schools that do a tough job. Secondary schools, where we send our teenagers and sigh with relief that they didn’t burn the family house over the holidays, is no holiday camp. It is teachers who spend the longest time with these hormones-charged girls and boys whom we have come to regard as an extra expense during the holidays.

Just over a week ago, I decided to check on a neighbour. I knocked and waited. The door creaked open and I was almost knocked over by blaring Jamaican ‘Riddim’ music at a thousand decibels. There were about ten teenagers doing dance moves that struck you as some not-so-godly orgy. My friend was not in, and I walked away wondering by what stroke of genius teachers get such frenzied crowds to read for and pass exams? It tells you why they should be paid more. I however don’t like the ‘choir’ approach being championed by the unions. On work-pay matters, I believe people should be individually interviewed for a job they qualify for. Above qualifications, they must demonstrate aptitude for the job. Once hired, they should be put on probation to be sure that they can deliver. If they sharpen their skills and get further education, it matters to the employer only to the extent that another degree translates into better performance. Early in the year, a friend drew my attention to a shabby man with greying hair, flayed jacket and worn-out shoes.

The man was groggy and incoherent as he mumbled what I thought to be greetings but were in fact entreaties for a drink. I was disturbed to learn that he was a deputy head teacher who had been interdicted for absenteeism and drunkenness. When I wondered why anyone would make him an administrator, I was helpfully reminded that he was studying for his PhD.

Folks, while continuous learning is a fact of life, we must not forget the times we are living in. People will do anything for money. We have heard rumours of senior officers with Luthuli Avenue educational certificates. We know of others whose term papers are written by unemployed graduates who get such assignments online. If we decide teachers and other civil servants will be paid based on certificates, are we ready for the gushing stream of better papers at TSC interview rooms and nothing else?